Biography
Father Patrick Brennan is the pastor of Holy Family Parish in Inverness, Illinois, an active and vibrant congregation in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. For thirteen years, he was Director of the Office of Evangelization for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, where he developed innovative renewal programs for local churches. He’s an expert in the field of evangelization and church renewal and has served as a consultant throughout the country. Father Brennan is a psychotherapist and the author of several books, including Spirituality For An Anxious Age and The Way of Forgiveness. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]  

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          and 30 Good Minutes.

"Getting Past Fear"  
The signs in front of our schools and churches have been changed to recognize the times we are in since September 11^th, 2001. We see a lot of "God Bless America." One sign in front of a public high school particularly struck me recently. The words simply said, "Stay strong."

Stay strong. As I looked at those words, they didn’t seem to come from some sort of macho, bravado viewpoint. Rather the words seemed to spring from vulnerability, woundedness, and fear. Recognizing how terrifying some of the possibilities before us are, and remembering the images that have been burned into our collective consciousness on September 11, the words "stay strong" are very striking.

How do we stay strong in the midst of all of this? There is no "normal" that we can return to. But, how do we get past fear? I would like to connect those two notions for our reflection and prayer: "stay strong" and "get past fear." As individuals and as a nation, we cannot live out of fear.

The first 2 chapters of Habakkuk, the prophet of the Hebrew scriptures, almost sound like they were written for us. As the prophet looks around him, he sees only violence and destruction. He even asks the questions that I have heard people ask recently: "Where is God in all of this?" "Is God listening to us?" "Is God with us?" And God gives a response to Habakkuk, and to us. God says, "Amidst all that is frightening and challenging, we are to remember our vision and live out of that vision."

Part of staying strong, part of getting beyond fear, is remembering and articulating and living our vision: Who are we as God’s people? Who are we as members of the Reign of God?

There are three passages from scripture that I think contain elements of what our shared spiritual vision should be. The first is in the first chapter of the second letter to Timothy where the author reminds us that we are to live out of love, realizing that we are unconditionally loved and accepted by Abba, our Creator/Parent. In turn, we are to share love at home, in practical ways, at work, in our neighborhoods. And from this grounding in love, it says we are to move away from our fears to a courage about life, despite challenging circumstances. In fact, 2 Timothy says we should expect to share in some hardships. 2 Timothy also reminds us to live disciplined, ordered lives.

The second passage of scripture takes us back to the prophet Habakkuk. There, we see another element of the vision that we are to live that runs through the passage, and that is patience. Amidst life’s difficulties we are to be patient - patient with each other, patient with the course of history, patient with the course of events transpiring nationally and internationally.

Then in Luke 17, Jesus adds another dimension to this vision of life that we are called to, a vision that will help us "stay strong" and "get past fear." There, Jesus calls us to seek to be servants in all that we do – in our work, in our professional lives, in our ministries, in our parishes and congregations. We are called to be humble servants. We are not to live or work for praise. We are not to live or work for recognition.

Six characteristics for our spiritual vision: love, courage, patience, a realization and a realism about sharing in hardships, discipline and service. But there is more.

Earlier in Luke 17, Jesus says that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed, we can command a mulberry tree to be uprooted and planted in the sea and it will happen. We must have faith.

What is faith? Faith is a relationship with God. Faith is a body of truths and convictions. But faith is also this vision that I am speaking of. Faith is an outlook on life, a viewpoint, an attitude that runs through and influences all that we do and all that we are. If we have a vision/faith that is passionate about the presence and activity of God in our lives, then we have tremendous power in our lives. Jesus says even if we have a little bit of faith, we will be able to do tremendous things. I believe that if we have this kind of faith as a vision for life, although we may be victimized by terrorism again in the United States, although we might even suffer some great hardship because of the terrorism, we will be able to pass through it and arrive at new life. Passionate faith teaches us that God’s truth and God’s way will always prevail and God’s truth and God’s way will always be good for the human family.

I believe that as a nation, we need to protect ourselves against foes; as a nation we must engage in activities that will lead our country and our world to justice, using proportionate military activities. But I also believe if we are going to "stay strong" and "get past fear" our vision must also include forgiving those who have hurt our country, in fact, all who hurt us throughout our lives.

I have discovered in research that forgiveness involves some difficult steps: we need to enter into the hurts and the woundedness of our lives and not deny them; we need to feel the pain of what happened to us as a nation; we need to allow ourselves to feel the pain of all the hurts throughout our lives. Then, feeling the pain, we must then move on to some sort of empathy, of understanding. What was going on in the life, the history, the background, the cultural context of the people who hurt us? There is no forgiveness without empathy.

Then we need to enter into some healthy guilt so that we can better identify with the people who hurt us. By healthy guilt I mean we have to realize that we have also hurt people many times. In realizing that, we need to generate grateful memories of times that we have been forgiven by other people. And as we have some of these elements of entering the hurt, and empathy, and healthy guilt, and grateful memories moving within us, all of this can prompt us to move toward a decision to forgive. The essence of forgiveness is that it is a gift. In it we let go of the need to get even and to hurt back. And whether we go to the people we’re forgiving or not, we need to make public, at least with one other person, our decision and action to forgive so that that one other person can help us stay and grow in the mode of forgiveness. Sometimes we need to work through the forgiveness process over and over again.

A final piece of the vision that will make us strong and help us get past fear is to be more regular in and to deepen our prayer lives. In Luke 11 and Matthew 6, Jesus gives us a model prayer. It’s come to be known as The Lord’s Prayer. In giving us this prayer, Jesus is not saying, "Always say this particular prayer." He says, "When you pray, pray like this." I encourage us to study the Lord’s prayer as a model of holistic, integrating prayer for all of us.

Stay strong. Grow strong. Get past fear. How do we do this in the face of difficult times? We remember who we are, remember our vision that we are to be people grounded in love, people of courage, people who are realistic about struggle, people who are disciplined, people who are patient, people who want to serve. And we are to be people who work the process of forgiveness over and over again. And we are to be people of prayer. In fact, prayer is practicing the vision of who we are.

Parents in the audience, these are frightening times. If we feel fear as adults, imagine what our children must feel, intuiting fear from us, or just having their own fears and perceptions. I challenge all of you who are mothers and fathers, whatever your faith tradition might be, to take time each day to pray with your children. Teach them about the remarkable ability we have to connect with a higher power. Teach them about the remarkable vision for life that flows from being a person of prayer. It is through prayer, especially, that we can stay strong, that we can get beyond fear.

Interview with Patrick Brennan
Interviewed by Floyd Brown

Floyd Brown: Father Pat, in these times of stress and fear, if you say "stay strong," we will. But people react in different ways. Are they turning more toward the church? Is attendance up? Are they seeking spiritual guidance at a time like this?

Patrick Brennan: I think across denominations, you would find that attendance is up. In fact, after the September 11^th act of terrorism, we weren’t even publically announcing services, but we would have services almost everyday at different times and the church would be full. The weekend after the act of terrorism, the church was packed. And I know this is true in other churches, also. The feelings were just all over the place. I would sometimes open up homily time just to hear what people were feeling. They talked about sadness, depression, anxiety and fear. Many folks who had been away from church for a long time tearfully came up to me and said, "I want to come back. God has been the missing piece in my life. I realize now I need God. I need a community. I need a church." So it has been a remarkable time to be a pastor, to see what this incident has done to people.

Brown: Evangelization, of course, is a very strong thrust in your ministry and in what you do. You are carrying on this message throughout the year, but at a time like this when it is particularly stressful, are there certain things or certain scriptures you turn to that help you guide people through this period?

Brennan: Well, I see evangelization as essentially trying to present the vision of Jesus, in our case. That vision is encased in his preaching on the Reign of God. So whenever you are going through the Scriptures and you hear Jesus talking about the Reign of God, he is talking about this vision of life that we ought to have. Basically, what I try to ask people to do, or help people to do, is to get in touch with the depths of their humanity. It’s ok to be afraid, it’s OK to be sad, it’s OK to be angry, it’s OK to have all sorts of feelings about what we are going through. But ultimately we need to surrender heart and mind to this understanding of God, in our case as revealed by Jesus Christ: a God who is all loving, a God who is for us, a God who, as St. Paul says, will always work all thing to our benefit. I just think we have to have a passionate, convictional faith about that God. I use Psalm 31 and Luke 24 a lot. "Into your hands I commend my spirit," into your hands I hand over my life.

Brown: And, of course, you mentioned that in your talk. This is a stressful time. People react in different ways. A lot of it is anger. I heard a marvelous sermon by a minister saying that this is a time for us to tear down walls, rather than to build walls. People have different religious beliefs, different approaches. How do you see this happening now? Are we growing further apart or is this going to bring us closer together?

Brennan: I think whenever we enter into a realm of fundamentalism—and fundamentalism exists in all the faiths—we get farther apart. I think what’s really called for here, and what God is calling us to, is a shared consciousness or a shared vision. Whether we are Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or whatever our faith expression, there must be common life-giving elements that we share, that we can create a collective consciousness about. I really believe that’s what Jesus was trying to do with his Reign of God preaching. I don’t think he was so much into denominationalism as much as he was as saying let us accept God as our sovereign and live in communion, love, service and justice with each other. I think the great world religions need to move toward that kind of consciousness. That’s probably a long time in coming because of the severity of the conflict and the anger we are up against now, but I certainly wish, in a spirit of ecumenism, we could move towards that shared consciousness.

Brown: Could you give a little guidance to those who are viewing us at this time about the ways we can get a better understanding of other religions? I am sure that you probably are teaching this in the church itself. What should an individual do?

Brennan: I think it is good for us to study religions other than our own. We have a series running in our parish called Insight. Especially around this incident, we’ve asked speakers to come in to educate us about Islam. A lot of Christians, a lot of Catholics, don’t understand a lot about Islam, don’t understand a lot about Judaism. So I think it’s very important, whether we do it through formal learning sessions or do it through our own private reading, to understand other faiths. That is part of the empathy I talked about earlier that can lead us to greater forgiveness and reconciliation, to understand other people.

Brown: Father Pat, always a pleasure. Thank you very much.